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Reader-response criticism as a reaction against new criticism has changed the focus from the text to the reader. The reader is no longer deemed a passive agent, but active, participating in the meaning-making process, as reading is a process during which the reader also experiences what the characters experience and feels with him/her. In this respect, the text and the reader interact with each other. Meaning is accordingly created out of this interaction and transaction. A multiplicity of meanings, perspectives and interpretations becomes possible in the process of reading. Each reading of a literary text produces different interpretations. Social, religious, political, psychological and cultural contextual factors and background of the reader have a strong potential to influence the interpretation. Accordingly, the characteristics of the interpretive community are influential in meaning-making. This study will, therefore, discuss reader-response criticism with specific emphasis on Iser's theory (the implied reader and repertoire) and apply the reader-response theory to Robert Browning's poem, My Last Duchess.

As a writer, critic, and philosopher, Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911) left a lasting imprint on Polish culture. He absorbed virtually all topical intellectual trends of his time, adapting them for the needs of what he saw as his primary mission: the modernization of Polish culture. The essays of the volume reassess and contextualize Brzozowski's writings from a distinctly transnational vantage point. They shed light on often surprising and hitherto underrated affinities between Brzozowski and intellectual figures and movements in Eastern and Western Europe. Furthermore, they explore the presence of his ideas in twentieth-century century literary criticism and theory.

First published in 1999, this volume is a collection of papers on Portuguese literature, giving a historical and more updated review. Included are twelve essays presented in chronological order, providing students with a series of assessments and developments.

This Companion addresses the contemporary transformation of critical and cultural theory, with special emphasis on the way debates in the field have changed in recent decades. -Features original essays from an international team of cultural theorists which offer fresh and compelling perspectives and sketch out exciting new areas of theoretical inquiry Thoughtfully organized into two sections - lineages and problematics - that facilitate its use both by students new to the field andadvanced scholars and researchers -Explains key schools and movements clearly and succinctly, situating them in relation to broader developments in culture, society, and politics -Tackles issues that have shaped and energized the field since the Second World War, with discussion of familiar and under-theorized topics related to living and laboring, being and knowing, and agency and belonging

For the first time, people are questioning the sustainability of a state-centered understanding of censorship that harkens back to traditions of 19th century liberalism. Censorship has been widely studied as it was manifest in the Biedermeier period, during the Nazi era, and in East Germany, yet to date, there has been an alarming lack of attention to this issue in relation to West Germany or the modern, unified Germany

Paradoxa als »Gegenmeinungen« sind zentrales Gestaltungsmerkmal der Texte von Denis Diderot und Bertolt Brecht. Beide gehören nicht nur zu den bekanntesten Theaterdichtern, sondern sind auch politische Autoren. Dies zeigt sich sowohl in der Wahl ihrer Themen als auch in ihrer Formsprache. Susanne Schmiedens ausführliche Lektüre ausgewählter Texte im Zusammenspiel mit zeitgenössischen theoretischen Diskursen demonstriert, dass Theater, Wissenschaft und Demokratie gleichermaßen Gegenmeinungen als ihre Möglichkeitsbedingung betrachten müssen. Für eine demokratische Gesellschaft gilt, diese nicht nur zuzulassen, sondern zum gemeinsamen Tanz aufzufordern.

»Ich stand an der Küste und redete mit der Brandung BLABLA, im Rücken die Ruinen von Europa.« Bei Heiner Müller spielen Küste und Landschaft, Flucht und Grenzen, Gewalt und Tod eine zentrale Rolle. Migration und Klimawandel verändern die Landschaften, an den Küsten — den Räumen der Selektion — treten ihre Auswirkungen besonders deutlich in Erscheinung. Die Menschen und die Landschaften führen Krieg gegeneinander. Heiner Müllers Texte stören mit ihrem Geschichtsbewusstsein und ihrer Ästhetik, sie unterbrechen das gesellschaftliche und politische Kontinuum. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes untersuchen die KüstenLANDSCHAFTEN als performative und diskursive Räume. Es entsteht ein Mosaik aus den Sektionen ›Theater-Landschaft‹, ›Grenzen — Küsten — Landschaften‹, ›Landschaften jenseits des Todes‹ und ›Landschaften der Störung‹, ergänzt um Gespräche und Praxisdokumentationen zum »Landvermesser« Heiner Müller.

Marina Grishakova belongs to the younger generation scholars of the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics. Her book is part of a semio-narratological tradition of a single author or a single work research that tackles issues of wider theoretical import: applicability of the concept of "modeling" in the humanities, theory of mimesis and the function of experimental literature in (post)modernist culture. By drawing on Y. Lotman's conception of artistic models, the book adopts the semiotic perspective on modeling as an open-ended heuristic process underlying the logic of discovery and creative thinking. The book discusses the models of time and memory in modernist culture (Nietzsche's and Bergson's philosophy of time, Minkowski's research on the psychopathological types of temporality) and their relevance to Nabokov's fiction; popular-scientific notions of serialism and the fourth dimension; thematizations of the observer in modernist philosophy and arts; visual "prostheses" and "machines" (Eco), particularly the "camera vision" metaphor, its relation to Bergson's notion of automatism and the popular idea of the criminal use of hypnosis. Vision is thematized also as a means of seduction and noncoercive control. Even before Foucault, Baudrillard and other critics of modernity, Nabokov noticed that advertising, political propaganda and erotic seduction alike employ implicit forms of suggestion. The book revises Rorty's dilemma of "autonomy" and "solidarity" as applied to Nabokov's work and offers new readings. It considers categories of narrative poetics as forms of cultural encoding that broaden and transform reader's modes of perception and sense-making. Micro-models active in certain contexts or in the works of certain authors function as mobile interfaces between individual sensibilities and complex cultural chrono- and spatio-types where time and space take on conceptual meaning. (This title is the second revised edition, available online only. The web shop refers to the first edition, which is available as a paper monograph.)

Plato is one of the most influential thinkers since the Classical time of Greece. Most of the literary criticisms came after him were trying to reply Plato to defend the moral authority of poetry. This paper is an attempt to intertwine the two seemingly unparalleled stream of thoughts club into a common politico-critical space. Plato, the Athenian philosopher, who lived somewhere around 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC might be a strange figure in the socio-political context of the second half of twentieth century. But his critical thoughts, especially his literary criticism, find an interesting parallel in Postcolonial stream of literary criticism. It's an attempt to read Plato from a Postcolonial angle and positioning him as a critique in Postcolonial critical space. This paper analyses Plato's Book X of The Republic and the position taken by Socrates, the central character of Plato's Dialogues. Plato's ideas on Mimesis and his other major criticism against poetry are juxtaposed here with postcolonial criticism of Edward Said, Michel Foucault, Chinua Achebe and other major postcolonial critiques.

Poetry, mainly Urdu poetry, played a very significant role in India's freedom struggle. This book explores the poetic contributions going back centuries of colonial rule, which became songs of freedom and captured both the poignancy and fervor of revolution, protest, and hope. Urdu became one of the essential languages in colonial India, used by both political leaders and many young revolutionaries in speeches and writings as slogans for freedom and a call to action. Poets such as Josh Malihabadi, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Sahir, Makhdoom, Kaifi Azmi, Majaz, Majrooh, and Faiz Ahmad Faiz wrote highly patriotic poetry which was used not only to inspire and help mobilize people but also to offer criticism of existing socio-cultural practices in India and promote reform and equality. This work - a creative and selective translation of the book Hindustan Ki Tahriik-e Aazadi aur Urdu Shaa'yiri by Professor Gopi Chand Narang - includes English translations of poems from rare historical manuscripts as well as banned and witnessed poetry confiscated by the British. It looks at key events in India's struggle for freedom through the prism of literature, language, poetry, and culture while also delving into the lives of poets who became the voice of their generation. This book is an essential read for students and researchers of colonial and postcolonial literature, cultural studies, comparative studies, history, and South Asian literature and culture.

How does Spivak approach the signs the madwoman in the attic, the good black servant, the monster and the "wholly Other"? What is the basis of Spivak's ethics of interpretation and what are her main tools? Gayatri Spivak: Deconstruction and the Ethics of Postcolonial Literary Interpretation is an ambitious and compelling critical work which answers various questions surrounding one of the most notoriously difficult literary theorists in our times. This book is an in-depth study of Spivak's readings of a cluster of canonical and peripheral literary texts covering Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Frankenstein, Foe and "Pterodactyl." It divides Spivak's literary theoretical practice into two phases; the first is de Manian and the second is Derridean. However, the book also shows that these two phases are not clearly independent from each other; rather, there are continuities between them. The theory resulting from these two phases can be described as affirmative postcolonial literary interpretation: Derridean in spirit but de Manian in technique. The book also meticulously defines Spivak's position within the thought of Derrida, de Man and western feminists and reveals the possibilities available for readers who wish to ethically approach and interpret the sign of the "wholly Other," which reaches in its scope "the native subaltern female." Analysing Spivak's literary interpretation as such, this book offers insights to postcolonial readers and provides them with new tools, such as "learning from below," useful for reading not literature only, but also contemporary political, cultural and social issues from new perspectives

What is the meaning of a word?' In this thought-provoking book, Hagberg demonstrates how this question—which initiated Wittgenstein's later work in the philosophy of language—is significant for our understanding not only of linguistic meaning but of the meaning of works of art and literature as well.

Premised on the pervasiveness of generic categories within literary historiography, the present analysis attempts to delineate the generic idioms present within three histories of Romanian literature (authored by G. Călinescu, Nicolae Manolescu and Mihai Iovănel, respectively). Engaging a descriptively historical, rather than theoretical, approach to genre and its metadiscourses, the paper begins with an abridged version of the cardinal disputes of genre criticism. Subsequently, it comparatively addresses the presence of genre within the three volumes, aiming to locate them within recognizable frameworks of genericity and to establish the overlapping territories of their generic landscapes. Thus, it distinguishes G. Călinescu as a practitioner of post-Romantic genre theory, further showcasing how some of his central aestheticist positions survive in Nicolae Manolescu's moderately formalist account of the issue. Against the backdrop of their more conservative, teleological historiographical projects, Mihai Iovănel's 2021 Istoria Literaturii Române Contemporane 1990-2020 [The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature 1990-2020] displays a distinct methodological apparatus, predicated on the author's rejection of the paradigmatic autonomy of the aesthetic. His employment of materialist theories of art is corelative to a conception of genre as a contingent, empirically determined instrument of analysis, which, far from being a rhetorically stable, abstract category, actively mediates the relationship between social and aesthetic history. This shift engenders substantial amendments to the physiognomy of literary history as genre, enabling it to encompass extra-literary (and noncanonical) phenomena.
Keywords: literary genres, literary history, Romanian literature, Mihai Iovănel.